


Three Rescues and Two Tall Tales

by Sid



Category: Aubrey-Maturin Series - Patrick O'Brian, Master and Commander - All Media Types
Genre: Age of Sail, Community: spook_me, Fantasy, Gen, Horror, Monsters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-26
Updated: 2012-10-26
Packaged: 2017-11-17 01:53:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/546347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sid/pseuds/Sid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Spook Me Multi-Fandom Halloween Ficathon 2012 is aliiiiive!</p>
<p>This year I wrote in the Master and Commander fandom, and I chose tentacle monster for my prompt.  The mod then sent me two artwork prompts.  They were <em>perfect</em>.  I looked at them and I had my story.  I've embedded them as links in the body of the fic.</p>
<p>I'm not tagging this as slash, since this is precisely the way Jack and Stephen carry on in the canon. *g*</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Rescues and Two Tall Tales

"I don't know how long we floated there. I'd fallen asleep at some point, somewhere before dawn…I thank God you were still safe in my hold, Stephen. Thank God…thank God." Jack's voice was hoarse and cracked.

"Even asleep you protect me," Stephen said mournfully. "Great, clumsy fool that I am." He stroked Jack's damp hair. "This is the second time you have saved me from myself, at such risk to your own life."

Bloodshot blue eyes turned to him. "Second time?" Jack's large frame shivered. "I could never go through that a second time. No, not even for you," he ended on a whisper.

"Does he wander in his head?" Stephen asked himself privately. "Jack, it is twice now that I have fallen off the dear ship, do you not recall this?"

Jack frowned. "Certainly I recall. Who is talking of that?"

"I said that you have saved me twice, and you denied it."

"From the _sea_? Warm and gentle as a millpond?" Jack laughed.

"I do not like the sound of that laughter," Stephen said inwardly, feeling a chill go over him, even in the heat of the morning sun that beat down on the island whose shore they had reached some little time ago. How long ago he did not know. He must have been unconscious at the time.

"It was that hideous thing I saved you from. Or tried to." Jack clutched at Stephen's hand. "I could not save you, dear."

"He is febrile, delirious." Stephen reached out with his other hand and adjusted the position of the palm frond he had planted upright in the sand to shade Jack's face.

"I woke when it tore you from my grasp…carried you down…down. [Its eyes, Stephen!](http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab353/spook_me/Spook_me%20Fairie%20Tales/ArthurBEvans3.jpg) Great, malevolent eyes staring up at me as it stole you, took you away. Oh, God, I will never forget those eyes!" Jack's own eyes were wide with remembered horror.

"Joy, you have dreamed it. It is nothing but a passing nightmare."

"A nightmare," Jack nodded. "A living nightmare, with the sun rising in the sky. If that creature had gotten you in the dark…Stephen, I would never have found you. You would have been gone, and I would surely have been next." A shudder shook him. "Even when I found you, there was so little I could do! I had only my knife, and that monster was four times the size of a man."

"Jack, dear, there was no monster," Stephen tried to reassure him. "Here I am, 'safe ashore, Jack', as the song promises. You must try to calm yourself. You are weakened by our ordeal and must rest."

"You slept, or were unconscious throughout, Stephen. The monster held you fast, wrapped in one of its giant tentacles, and fought me off with the others as if brushing off an annoying fly. I was as helpless as a fly, and ready to burst for want of air. I had to surface, Stephen. I had to leave you there, in that evil thing's clutches, not knowing what I would find when I dove down again. Not knowing if you would still be there to be saved…Do not shake your head at me! You do not believe a word I say!"

"You are ill, made ill by your exertions and your care, my dear. I am safe; we are both safe. You must rest, and then we must find water. We must find water, so that we may revive ourselves and stay strong while we wait for rescue."

Jack turned his head away angrily. "Look beneath your shirt, if you won't believe me. The monster's marks will still be on your skin."

"I will look, and then I will show him," Stephen told himself. "He will calm…Joseph and Mary!" he exclaimed.

Jack turned back and took one reluctant, skittish glance at the round sucker marks that encircled Stephen's waist. "You believe me now?"

Stephen touched one of the marks disbelievingly. "How could I have slept through such a thing?"

"You must have been unconscious the entire time. You never stirred while I was bringing you to shore. I feared the worst, that you may have drowned. You were underwater so very long." Jack clutched at Stephen's hand again.

"But how did you save me?" Stephen asked wonderingly. "You said you could not fight this creature…"

Jack hesitated. "This part…this part feels like a dream. All the rest was nightmare, but this…" He shifted on the sand, leaning up on an elbow and gazing at Stephen earnestly. "If you will not believe this part, I have no way to prove it to you."

Stephen laid a hand on Jack's shoulder. "Tell me, brother. I will believe."

"There was a woman. [The most beautiful I have ever seen](http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab353/spook_me/Spook_me%20Fairie%20Tales/warwick-goble-fairies-on-the-sea-sh.jpg), with long and flowing dark hair, and a gown that flowed, too, like an ocean wave in the air. She had a headdress set with pearls, gleaming in the dawn's rays."

Stephen could almost see her. "A mermaid, you mean?"

Jack smiled for the first time. "After all you have said to convince me that such things do not exist?"

"I promised to believe, Jack. If you tell me mermaids exist…"

"No, she was no mermaid. A mermaid would be a gross creature in comparison. She had a very small boat, and she sat on its edge and dangled her toes in the water. She had shapely legs, and tiny, delicate feet. She herself was as tiny as a child, but with all the curves of a woman."

"Yes, you would notice, even at such a time," Stephen thought fondly. "Not a mermaid, then. And this delicate creature saved me?"

"Do not ask me to explain it, Stephen, for I cannot. When I rose to the surface to gulp in sweet air, she was just there, as though she had been there all along, and she looked into my eyes…into my heart. For my eyes must have shown all that I felt and dreaded, deep in my bosom."

Jack's eyes were presently showing Stephen love, relief, and wonder. "I make no doubt," Stephen murmured, happy that the earlier remembered terror had left them. "What did she do, this marvelous being?"

"I have no idea. All I know is that the monster that held you raised you up, and you surfaced behind me. I seized you and began to kick away desperately, away from those odious tentacles and horrid eyes, but when I looked back I saw the monster, now pale and rosy in the dawn, and shrunken to but a tenth part of what it once was, clinging to the little boat like a pet at its mistress's feet. And that little beauty who could somehow command a monster to give up its prey turned a bit to the side and pointed out over the water, even the long hem of her gown lifting and pointing. And I knew…I understood somehow that I must swim that way."

"And thus we came here."

"We came here, and thank God you revived."

"God be praised," Stephen said reverently, automatically, "but thanks also to the delicate beauty who commanded the great beast, whoever or whatever she may be. I dearly wish I might have seen her, and expressed my deep thanks."

"Oh, Stephen, how I wish you might have seen her, too! To know if you would have seen what I thought I saw…oh, all of it is beyond understanding, but what I thought I saw at the end, when she pointed!"

After all that Jack had seen and reported, Stephen could not imagine what could put such a look of excitement on his face. "I am positively with child! Tell me at once!" he demanded.

"When she turned to the side, well…brother, it was not just hair, nor gown nor headdress flowing behind her, that I saw, as clearly as I see you now." Jack gripped Stephen's arm. "It was _wings_. The most perfect, the most lovely little wings, shimmering behind her, catching and reflecting all the colors of the sky and sea…"

Stephen broke away from Jack's grasp and shot to his feet.

"Well, I don't ask you to believe me," Jack sighed, sinking down onto his back. "I scarcely believe it myself."

"I believe you entirely, joy," Stephen said, lifting his arms and waving them about. "I am simply distracted by the very timely arrival of our rescue."

Jack was on his feet beside him in an instant.

Indeed it was the dear _Surprise_ , and even as they watched, a boat was lowered over her side and was soon pulling towards them.

"Stephen, dear fellow," Jack began slowly.

"You don't think anyone would believe us?"

"It might be best to say least. You know how the men gossip, and when men from two ships get together…"

"Soon the entire Navy is privy. Just so. You may rely on my discretion, of course."

"Thankee, Stephen." Jack sighed. "It's a shame, though. Such a good yarn."

Stephen put a consoling hand on his shoulder. "You can tell it at home, my dear, to terrify and entrance Sophie and the children."

Jack's face lit up. "So I can."

When the boat pulled up onto the shore, Bonden leapt out and began wringing their hands, while the men in the boat cheered. "Captain! Doctor!"

Wringing right back, and grinning from ear to ear, Jack said, "You made good time, Bonden. I certainly didn't anticipate being rescued quite so quickly."

A strange look passed over Bonden's face. "Well, we had some help, sir. You're not going to believe what happened. You'll never believe it, sir, not in a million years, you won't."

Jack and Stephen exchanged a glance. "Try us," they said in unison.

"Well, see, there was this tiny slip of a woman, from out of nowhere she was…"


End file.
